Integrate Social Media into Your SobiPro Template

Written by Robert Vining | 08 August 2011

Many users want to integrate social media sharing icons into their site, including Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Google+ to name a few. Now there's an easy way to do this on all of your SobiPro entries as well, by adding just a single line of code to your template and installing a free Joomla Module.

We are taking advantage of the Joomla Load Module plugin that comes installed by default in all of the current versions of Joomla, including 1.5 and 1.7, and a Module that is freely available on the Joomla Extension Directory called ITP Share. There are versions available for both Joomla 1.5 and 1.7.

Edit Your SobiPro Template and Add the Code

To start with, if you are using a SobiPro template from Sobi Templates, the code is already loaded into the template, so you can skip this step. If you are using your own template or one of the default templates in SobiPro, you simply need to decide where you want the icons to appear and add the line of code shown below in the details.xsl found in yourtemplate>entry folder that can be edited from the Template Manager in SobiPro.

<div>{loadposition social}</div>

UPDATE! -- Set the Template to Parse Template Output!

While you are still in the SobiPro admin section, navigate to the Section Configuration menu on the left and select General Configuration. Now select the Template Data tab and make sure the Parse Template Output is set to 'Yes'.

Download and Install the Module

Next you will want to download and install the ITP Share module for your Joomla version. Once installed, configure the Settings for the social icons you want to show in SobiPro. It has most of the popular social networks available, and the one's I've tested so far work great in both 1.5 and 1.7. You can download IPT Share here:

http://itprism.com/free-joomla-extensions/socialmedia-share-plugin

You will need to Enable the ITP Share module so it's set to the Published state, and set the module position to social. This should not be listed in the Module position list, you should set this by manually typing it into the box and clicking Save & Close. If the social module position is already in your template for some reason, you will need to use a different word for this module position, and change the word in the code shown above to match. Now Save and you should be done.

Now Go View Your Work

Next you can go on out to the front of your site and view an Entry in SobiPro. You should now see the social network sharing icons wherever you placed the code in your template.

Here's a screenshot of ITP Share in action here on the site: 

This is just one of the many new features you will find in our SobiPro Templates.

Is this something you think you might use in one of your SobiPro powered directory sites?